Something to Believe In
by Fear the Pretty People
Summary: One-Shot. How can Hermione and Draco hold on when everything they've known is slipping away? By finding something else that they can believe in.    No HR/R. Takes place in 6th year. Not book/movie-verse specific. Reviews appreciated but no flames, please.


Disclaimer: All characters in this story belong to the amazing J. K. Rowling. The title is from the song "Something to Believe In" by Aqualung which is where I got the inspiration for how this story was carried out. I own nothing except the sequence in which the words were placed.

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Draco watched her between the cracks of the book shelf as she gestured, her mouth moving too quickly for him to take a guess at what she was explaining. Potter and Weasley faded between paying Hermione close attention and letting their minds wander. Draco would lay top dollar on a safe bet that they wouldn't be able to recall more than a quarter of what she was explaining, finals in a week or no.

Draco couldn't understand why she continued to help them. Friends they might be but the Golden Boy and Sidekick put more effort into getting her to help than actually listening to Hermione after she'd agreed. Potter, at least, Draco thought, considered it to be a way to keep the friendship together. It was expected that, when it was close enough to the final exams, he and Weasley would go crawling to Hermione as a way to show her that her superior intellect was important to them whether they meant it or not. Weasley, he suspected, came to reality long enough to realize that, yes, the end of term was nearing and no, he wasn't likely to pass his exams without his bushy-haired friend's help. This would continue until he could come to terms with the fact that no amount of tutelage from Hermione could help him and, what the hell, better luck next year. Weasley would then go back to just accepting Hermione as a "friend," though, "part of the scenery" might be the more appropriate term. It's there, no work involved.

Draco suspected Hermione had figured all of this out for herself- she just didn't want to acknowledge it to anyone else. Maybe, she believed, if she just played the game a little longer, kept trying to teach them a little more, gave into their pleading requests one more time, it would be like it was before. Maybe…

Somewhere in the previous year, after Sirius Black's death, after Arthur Weasley's Christmas stay at St. Mungo's, the three friend's had drifted. Draco knew there was some jealously and tension cropping up because of Slughorn's preference to Potter and Hermione but Draco also knew that friends, sometimes, just drifted apart for no particular reason.

Shaking his head, Draco turned and walked further back into the stacks. Might as well forget about it. He and Hermione had an unspoken agreement to not discuss their various friendships.

_

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_

Hermione had to stifle a giggle at dinner when she caught sight of the haughty way he held his head at the Slytherin table. The sneer he fixed on Zambini made her recall the Draco Malfoy she used to know but was in conflict with the one with which she had formed a firm friendship that had eventually evolved into romance. What Hermione was used to now were Draco's smiles and laughter rather than his frowns and scowls.

Acting his part in Slytherin was not something Hermione could laugh at, however. If any of those loyal to Voldemort knew how Draco really felt, he wouldn't only be ostracized. No, opposing Voldemort meant much more when you were a son of the entitled and elite Malfoy family. Nevermind what punishment his parents would mete out, there wouldn't be anything left of him. The order would come down. He'd be killed by his father or, if by off chance that Voldemort was feeling sentimental, he would be handed over to another Death Eater. Either way, all sides pointed to silence.

Hermione knew it had been confusing for Draco. His entire life he'd believed that his father's dictations were true; that they were the only right in a world of wrong. He'd believed that "pure bloods" were not only the best, but the only acceptable people. Then… Then he'd reached that age. The age when you start to suppose; start to wonder if your parents might be biased, wrong, flawed. Next comes their fall. The pedestal you had placed them on collapses and you are free to form your own opinions and decide for yourself what is right and wrong; truth and fiction. Hermione knew that the pedestal that Draco had placed Lucius and Narcissa on hadn't so much collapsed as imploded. There was no tumble of rocks and pile of rubble left to clean and no chance of repair. Instead, with one cosmic shift of perception everything Draco knew was simply gone. Nothing left to hold onto.

Draco was dead-ended but knew how to keep up a façade. Hermione doubted anyone at the Slytherin table knew that Draco wore a mask. She wasn't surprised though; he'd been playing the same part for years.

_

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_

Neither of them could pinpoint the moment when they had become friends, or even when they had stopped hating each other. Hermione was rarely without Harry and Ron, and Draco usually had Crabbe and Goyle glued to his flanks but, eventually, one rude comment omitted, one glare not gazed had them both wondering for mere instances what was wrong with the other. Then one day, in class, Draco didn't roll his eyes when Hermione raised her hand and she noticed. One day, in the hall, he'd bumped into her, apologized and she didn't call him "ferret." It continued, picking up a quill the other had dropped down the stairs, lending a hand to find a misplaced book in the library, a warning that Binns was asking for three feet, not two and a half, on the history of witches in Romania and then—a shared smile. Little unacknowledged or stolen moments had turned into more.

Neither had suspected what was happening. Neither of them understood how it _could_ happen. Somewhere along the line, Draco had matured and Hermione had come to forgive.

Draco could just barely hear Hermione's approaching footsteps as he waited for her beside the lake. The quarter moon and stars gave barely any light so he couldn't make her out until she was only feet away. He jumped to his feet and met her grin with his own. Hermione wrapped her arms around him and hugged him tightly. Draco leaned down and kissed her softly. This was what they had waited for through the day. This gave Draco the courage to bide his time, to talk to Dumbledore and move forward with his life in secret until he could reveal himself. This helped Hermione with the ever dimming friendship between herself and Harry and Ron, helped her realize that they couldn't go back but maybe, if she let go, they could move forward. But mostly, this secret time they had together helped them realize that they both had someone to trust, someone and something they could believe was real; they both had someone they could run to when everything else fell apart, no questions, just acceptance.

"So," Draco whispered. "How was your day?"

"Same as usual, really. Yours?"

Draco nodded. "Same."

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A/N: Thank you to Brandi for beta-ing this for me :) Your Grammer Skillz are unsurpassed!

A/N 2: Thank you to Two Ghosts for pointing out the lyrics problem. I don't remember issues with that before, though it's been a while since I've posted here so I may have just forgotten. Have rectified it here and am off to check my other stories for such problems.


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